Marriage age for women to be increased to 21
On 21st December a bill was presented in Lok Sabha, to raise the legal age of marriage for women to 21. At present the age is 18 and 21 for girls and boys respectively. After resistance from other parties, the proposal was sent to the parliamentary panel for additional analysis. Firstly the bill may hinder personal laws relating to marriages of various communities and secondly the question arises will the law be enough to prevent child marriages? Will bringing the marriage age of women and men at par would give them impartiality or empowerment? Is the law enough to bring Change in the society?
No, definitely NO! Because crime like Child Marriage is happening all over the country beside having 'The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006'. Instead of preventing it, the new bill may be a cause of more illegal marriages. If the concern is about teenage pregnancy and mortality rate, even then just the law won't help to improve that, in that case awareness and education is needed to the grassroots level.
Firstly, The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 was put into existence to prohibit child marriages, but law itself has a loop hole. According to PCMA the underage marriage is valid, but voidable. How we are going to stop such crime, when the law states it's 'valid but voidable'. As the law gives the right to discard the marriage after two years of attaining majority. But a girl at 20, would take such a step? Who has societal pressure and nor her parents would support her. Instead of increasing the age we need to fix the ambiguity. They should get more years to disown their marriages, at least 4 years.
The PCMA helped those who married of their own choice, after reaching a legal age. They even received protection under the law. But after amending PCMA, they would refute these rights. And the parents would use it against their children. Where arranged marriage would be more powerful. The difference between the age of marriage affects the women more. So, why not both the genders marry at the same age at the age of 18.
Where do we see child marriages taking place? Basically in rural areas, where the family and the girls aren't educated. In Urban cities the majority gets married after 20. Because the women in cities are literate, their family knows the pros and cons of early marriage. Awareness is important than only a law could be properly implemented.
If the law comes into existence the parents will use this against their daughters to control their wishes and to suppress their choices of marriage. Child right convention provides right to be heard, right to be considered etc but the girls would be denied of these at the age of 21, beyond adulthood.
Mere the law won't help to prevent teenage pregnancy, or early marriage. And for this a law is not required, education is important. Where we need to find ways to educate girls. As per government data of 2017, the standard age of women's marriage increased to 22.1years. Changes are happening but it's confined to people who are educated. So the government needs to think how to improve or how to provide education to the countryside children. We need to plan about how to provide financial facilities to poor family, that they encourage their girl child for further education.
There is a need to put up campaigns on awareness or education on marriages, disadvantages of early marriages, disadvantages of teenage pregnancy etc. Because with help of awareness campaigns we will be able to acknowledge them about the facts. The law won't help to make them aware.
The government needs to understand the reason behind child marriages, it is a social and economical issue. Firstly, poor families don't see any value in continuing education. Some prefer private schooling over government ones,but due to the financial crisis they can't afford it. Thirdly some are domestic helpers so they force the girls to stay back home to look after the households behind their back. Hence stating that child marriages are the reason for students not studying further is not the actual truth. We should start working to provide every child their Right to Education.
The bill was passed in the hope that it would bestow gender equality. Would it really give women the same opportunity to learn, to earn, to move, to keep their opinions and to have their own choice of life? Just making the marriage age uniform the table won't turn. Still we would have stories of women who couldn't fulfill their dreams; dream to be educated, dream to be an independent individual, dream of flying high. Most of the countries legal marriage age for both the genders is 18. So marriage age is not the problem.
At the age of 18 both the women and men get some important rights like to vote, they can apply for permanent driving license, to drink liquor in Goa and few other states, to watch rated movies and they can even sign contracts for trades or other purposes. At the age of 18 they can do all these things except getting married. They can decide who they want as their leader but at that age they won't be allowed to decide their partners or come into a ceremonial bond.
Indians follow hypergamy culture, where they believe the men should be older, more learned, and must have high income. Because it's believed that only men are responsible to run a family. So in such a culture, would a law be enough to eradicate such a system? NO! Only education is the weapon to remove such stereotypes from society.
Mainly early marriages happen in Schedule Caste and Scheduled Tribe, where the family is economically backward and they feel that daughters are the burden on their shoulders. Hence,they end up getting their girls married as early as possible. Where they have a concern of giving dowry, and it's like the older their daughters get, the more dowry they have to arrange for. Such Orthodoxy thoughts won't be eradicated by putting a law into force.
Hence, rather amending The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 in terms of equalizing age, it should be focused more on increasing the tenure of nullifying the child marriage or making it void instead stating voidable. Since history, it's been transparent that education is the only key to unlock the minds of the youth. Governing body should think about how to access school facilities for every child irrespective of caste, gender, or place. More mass awareness programmes and campaigns should be arranged to inform about health issues,which girls would face, completion of early pregnancy, about marriage and other related issues. If a law comes into existence, then also what change would it make? If it's not strictly followed. And that's the most difficult part, to properly implement it. The solution is only education. The answer is knowledge, so it should be just focused on that.